British Broadcasting Corporation Gaza Documentary Deemed a 'Major' Violation of Media Standards, States Ofcom
The public service broadcaster was found to have committed a "significant breach" of media regulations by not revealing that the narrator of a film about the Gaza situation was the offspring of a Hamas representative, as ruled by regulatory body Ofcom.
An probe by the media regulator into Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone has concluded that the film was "substantially inaccurate".
The chief executive of the broadcaster had already issued an apology, saying there had been "a major oversight in relation to factual correctness".
Ofcom has instructed the corporation to transmit a evening announcement about its conclusions.
"Given this constitutes a major infringement of our rules, we are ordering the broadcaster to broadcast a announcement of our findings against it on BBC2 at 21:00, with a date to be confirmed," the regulator stated.
'Potential to Damage Confidence'
The regulator's statement said: "The inquiry we conducted determined that the programme's failure to disclose that the narrator's male guardian occupied a position in the Hamas-run government was significantly deceptive.
"It meant that the viewers did not have essential details which may have been highly relevant to their assessment of the narrator and the content he presented.
"Credibility is at the core of the bond between a broadcaster and its viewers, especially for a national broadcasting corporation such as the BBC.
"This failing had the potential to undermine the very considerable levels of trust that the public would have placed in a BBC factual programme about the conflict in Gaza."
The documentary was removed from the BBC's streaming service in February after the narrator's familial connections came to light, and in July an corporation's own inquiry concluded it breached the corporation's journalistic standards on factual correctness.
A representative for the broadcaster stated: "The Ofcom ruling is in line with the conclusions of the corporation's inquiry, that there was a serious error in the programme in relation to the corporation's content standards on factual correctness, which corresponds to clause 2.2 of the authority's broadcasting regulations.
"We expressed regret for this and we comply with the authority's determination in full. We will adhere to the directive as soon as the timing and language are finalised."
